Lesson on animal adaptation

The goal of this lesson is to get Kindergarten students to learn that animals bodies specifically adapt to the biome where they live. Library goals include:

• seeing that informational books contain facts
• the more informational books used, the more information you will find (different books have different facts)
• information can be categorized and compared

Kids come in to library and sit in four groups (at tables works well). Each group is assigned a place to visit:

• group 1: desert
• group 2: ocean
• group 3: jungle
• group 4: polar lands

Next each group gets 8-12 books specifically about their region with LOTS of photographs and illustrations. Kids spend 10 minutes looking through these. Before they begin ask them to notice:

• what are animals body's covered with?
• what are they eating?
• how do they move?
• can they camouflage?
• what do their bodies look like?

After about 10 minutes collect all the books and put this chart on Smart Board:


Have kids volunteer answers--stick to YES and NO as much as possible and kids will see patterns emerging.

Ask some questions once you finish--

• Can an animal camouflage anywhere or just where it lives?
• Why don't ocean animals have legs?
• Could an animal from one place easily live in another?

Start to have conversation about how bodies are built for the places they are.